


The Darkness Within

by selecasharp



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Blood and Injury, Dreams and Nightmares, Dreamsharing, Emotionally Hurt Dean, Fairies, First Kiss, First Time, Frottage, Hurt Dean, Hurt Sam, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Minor Injuries, Sharing a Bed, Supernatural Reverse Big Bang Challenge 2015
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-02
Updated: 2016-02-02
Packaged: 2018-05-17 21:21:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 19,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5885647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/selecasharp/pseuds/selecasharp
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ever since he lost the Mark of Cain, Dean's been haunted by ever-worsening nightmares. He insists it's nothing, but when injuries he sustains while asleep appear on him for real, Sam goes to great lengths to figure out what's happening — and to make Dean let him in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sillie82](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sillie82/gifts).



> Written for the Supernatural Reverse Big Bang on Livejournal and crossposted to [LJ](http://teashopmuses.livejournal.com/96661.html).
> 
> Inspired by this amazing piece, "Waking Dreams", by [sillie82](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sillie82/pseuds/Sillie82)!  
> 

  
**PART ONE**  
  


  
_stand on the edge of the knife_  
_cutting through the nightmare_  
_from which I just cannot awaken_  
_stand on the edge of the night_  
_living inside a moment_  
_from which I will never awaken_  


 

Dean’s having a nightmare.

He’d probably claim otherwise, but Sam knows the signs. Dean’s tossing in his sleep, fingers crooking against the mattress and lips moving as he mumbles gibberish too low for Sam to make out over the obnoxious commercial jingle playing on the TV. Add in that Dean’s pale and sweating, even though he’s kicked all the covers off and it’s maybe sixty-five in the room at best, and there’s no question.

Sam sets the takeout bag down on the desk and creeps across the room to Dean’s side. He picks up the remote first and shuts the TV off, just in time to hear Dean hiss out a long, pained breath. Dropping the remote, Sam reaches for him, but he hesitates before his hand actually touches Dean’s shoulder. Waking Dean from a nightmare is a crapshoot; most of the time he just blinks awake and acts like he was just dozing, nothing to see here, but sometimes he comes up swinging. Sam doesn’t blame him, though. He knows what it’s like.

Maybe he should leave Dean be, let the nightmare run its course. Waking him won’t stop it from happening again, and if he’s tired enough to fall asleep while waiting for food—

Dean’s lips move again, and without the TV on, Sam can hear him, now. “No,” he’s saying, over and over. Sweat glistens at his temples, damping his hair into little curls, and Sam wants to stroke his hand over Dean’s forehead, brush the hair back and tell him the same lies Dean used to tell him when he’d wake up from bad dreams. _You’re fine now, everything’s gonna be okay, you’ll see._

He’ll say his name once, Sam decides. If Dean wakes up, good. If he doesn’t, well. He needs the rest.

He clears his throat. “Dean?” 

Dean moans, a low miserable sound that makes the back of Sam’s neck prickle. “Stop,” Dean mumbles, tears leaking from the corners of his eyes as he thrashes, his hands striking out blindly and knocking into the bedside lamp. Sam grabs the lamp and rights it before it topples over, his heart tightening in his chest. Dean never cries in his sleep, as far as he knows.

To hell with it, he thinks, and puts his own hands on Dean’s shoulders. “Dean,” he repeats, bracing himself before gently shaking his brother. “Come on, man, wake up.”

Dean’s eyes fly open, and he jerks upright, pushing Sam back a step. “Sammy?” he gasps, putting a hand to his chest. “Jesus, I thought—”

“You okay?” Sam asks, letting out his breath. 

“Shit,” Dean mutters, scrubbing at the skin under his eyes and frowning. Dark circles are smudged under his eyes, and his skin looks clammy, Sam thinks, a frown touching his own mouth. His gaze flicks down to Dean’s arm, just to check, but the skin is still smooth and unbroken. The Mark of Cain is still gone, its hold over Dean gone too. It’s probably nothing then, he tells himself. But he can still hear the sound Dean made, can still see wetness sticking clumps of his lashes together. Maybe it’s nothing, he thinks, but he still wants to help, if he can. And they’re trying, they really are. 

“You want to talk about it?” he asks. 

Dean rubs at his face again, not looking at him. Sam waits. “Nah,” he says finally. “Nothing to talk about, I’m fine.” His eyes move past Sam, lighting on the bag on the desk by the door. “Awesome, you brought food.”

“Dean,” Sam says.

Dean looks at him then and sighs, rubbing his hands in his hair and down over his face. “Yeah, okay, I had a nightmare,” he mutters into his palms. “But it was nothing special, Sam, just Mark-related bullshit. Normal.” At Sam’s look, he amends, “Not _normal_ , but normal for us, you know? You know what it’s like. I’ll be fine, man.”

Sam nods slowly. They don’t talk about them much, but Dean’s right; nightmares are part and parcel for the two of them, after everything they’ve been through. Sam himself still dreams about his time in the Cage, about the shit he did without a soul, even about Dean and Dad and Jess dying sometimes, and Dean’s just been through hell. Everything leaves a mark, he knows that. Nightmares are just one of the ways those marks show themselves.

“You should eat then,” he says out loud, and to his relief, Dean smiles, just a bit.

“Hope you brought real food and not that rabbit shit you like,” he grunts, getting to his feet and padding over to the desk to rummage in the bag. 

Maybe this is what Dean needs. The two of them, acting like they used to. Like everything will be fine again. So Sam rolls his eyes and protests, “I don’t eat rabbit shit, dude.”

“Whatever, you totally do.” Dean smirks and pulls out the salad — Sam likes salads, thank you very much — and then lets out a pleased groan as he finds the burger Sam ordered him. “Awesome,” he says happily, taking a huge bite, and maybe Sam’s worried for nothing. Nightmares don’t mean anything, not really, and after what they just went through—

“I got you a salad too,” he says, and smiles at the look of horror Dean shoots him.

Maybe everything is okay, for once.

They’re still in Washington two nights later, kicking back and waiting to make sure the ghost of the body they’d burned earlier that evening doesn’t make a repeat appearance. “This is gonna suck,” Dean mutters, flipping through the exactly four channels their room’s TV gets. “No cable, barely any wifi, and we’re stuck here till Thursday? Plus this place’s water pressure sucks, I could barely get the damn grave dirt off.” 

“You know we have to make sure the spirit’s really gone,” Sam shrugs. “And it’s not like we’ve got anywhere else to be.” It’s kind of amazing, really. One salt and burn — already done and an easy one like old times — and a few days together in a motel actually sounds nice to him. The bunker’s growing on him, but it’s still not really home to him, not the way him and Dean in a motel room together with the Impala parked right outside is. “We can go out and check out the town tomorrow. And the wifi’s not that bad, just slow. We can look around for another job while we wait too. Plus, we can, you know.” He digs around in his duffel until he finds the latest George R.R. Martin book and holds it up. “Read.”

“ _You_ can,” Dean groans, flopping back onto his bed. “Fine, I’ll just watch infomercials then.”

Sam shakes his head and opens the book.

He jerks awake a little while later when the book lands on the bed next to his face with a loud thump. Blearily, he sits up and glances over at Dean. His brother is passed out, face smushed into the pillow, one arm draped over the edge of the mattress. Good, Sam thinks, and picks up the book, still open to the last page he remembers reading. Yawning, he sets it on the nightstand and then gets up and grabs the ice bucket. It’s empty, though, so he pockets his key and slips out of the room, shivering against the cold Washington air as he walks the few yards down to the little room with the decrepit old ice machine. It’s loud in the early morning air, the ice hitting the bottle of the bucket like shots, making Sam wince. 

When he gets back, Dean has moved and is now lying sprawled on his back, his chin tipped up. “No,” he mutters as Sam sets the ice bucket back on the tray. He’s gasping, and Sam turns around to study him, worry rippling through him. “No,” Dean repeats, pawing at the air, his face scrunched up in terror. He sounds younger, his voice cracking as he sobs, “No no no no…”

Another nightmare.

Sam crosses the room in a few steps and reaches out to touch him, but hesitates. Dean’s been asleep for less than an hour, and he knows if he wakes him now, he won’t go back to sleep for a while, possibly not for hours. But he can’t let him keep having this nightmare either, he thinks, watching as tears spill down Dean’s pale cheeks, making wet tracks that shine in the muted street light breaking through the curtains. 

It’s a stupid idea, really, but Sam does it anyway. Moving as carefully as possible, he climbs onto the bed with Dean, curling himself into the empty space to the side of him. “It’s okay,” he whispers, reaching out a tentative hand and smoothing it down Dean’s brow. “It’s okay, man, I’m here.” 

Dean quiets, turning towards Sam, his breath coming out in a soft exhalation. His cheek is cupped in Sam’s palm, his lashes fluttering as Sam studies his face. The wrinkles in his forehead smooth out, and Dean sighs, his hand coming up to tuck under Sam’s. Sam waits, his heart beating in his ears, but Dean doesn’t move or speak again, other than to breathe, long and slow and even. He’s all right, Sam thinks, breathing out his own sigh of relief.

He waits a little longer though, just to be sure. Dean’s head is heavy against Sam’s palm, his warmth bleeding into him, and Sam doesn’t want to move. Dean’s so close, so relaxed now, and he just wants to stay, to guard over Dean’s sleep a little while longer. But he knows what Dean will say if he wakes up and catches Sam there, and his own eyes are starting to close again. Reluctantly, he pulls his hand free, biting his lip as Dean stirs, mumbling something unintelligible before he settles down again.

Sam brushes his fingers over his brother’s temple one last time, his chest aching, then gets up and falls into his own bed.

When he dreams, it’s about Dean’s face, and the touch of his skin against Sam’s.

After breakfast, they spend the morning exploring the town, especially the library, where Sam uses one of their surprisingly fast computers to search for any jobs they could take on after this one, while Dean hides in a corner with his laptop and, Sam’s pretty sure, watches animated porn. He keeps an eye on the librarian, but she either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care, and by the time they leave to grab lunch Dean’s in a much better mood, so Sam files away his lecture about porn in public buildings for later and just watches Dean devour a whole basket of onion rings and a burger practically the size of his head.

“Hey Sammy,” Dean says when they’re done. “Wanna go see a movie?” He chuckles like it’s a joke, and it kind of is. They haven’t gone to see a movie in an actual theater in Sam doesn’t even want to think about how long. 

“Sure,” he smiles back.

The theater in this town is old-fashioned, with an actual marquee on the front Sam remembers passing a few blocks away. They get popcorn, even, and watch some bullshit action flick starring some guy who can’t act and some woman who can, but who doesn’t have anything to do other than scream a lot and look good in ripped clothes. Sam spends most of the movie watching Dean’s face, relishing every smile or laugh the movie draws out of him. It’s been ages since they did something pointless like this together, since Dean smiled like that, and he wants to keep it, wrap it up and hold it close. He finds himself leaning against his brother, shoulder to shoulder, and Dean grins and leans back into him, and it wouldn’t matter if they were watching something Oscar-worthy at this point, for all Sam pays attention. 

“Good day?” he asks when they leave to go find dinner.

Dean nods and says, “Good day,” his lips curving into a smile, and Sam realizes he wants to kiss him.

“Mexican?” he says instead.

He barely tastes his food, too busy watching Dean out of the corner of his eye and grappling with his feelings. It’s not new, wanting Dean like this, but it’s been a while since it hit him this strongly. But he’ll just have to deal, he tells himself, fidgeting as Dean smacks his lips over a taco and wishing he could just lean across the table and taste the tempting swell of his lower lip. But no. No more climbing into bed with Dean, or staring at him too long, or letting himself get carried away imagining what it would be like to finally kiss his brother. He can’t upset this delicate balance they have, can’t risk shaking things up between them again when they’re barely hanging on as it is. 

They need to be brothers, first.

That night, though, when Sam gets out of the shower, it’s to find Dean kicking at the sheets and mumbling curses, his eyes pressed tightly shut and his hands clenched in fists. “Stop,” he moans, beating at the air, his voice breaking as he coughs out a hard sob. 

Sam promptly forgets about his earlier vow and climbs onto the bed next to his brother, reaching out a hand to stroke over his hair. “Shh,” he whispers. “It’s okay, man, you’re okay.” 

“Sam,” Dean whispers, and Sam’s heart nearly stops. But Dean just turns his head toward him, eyes still closed, and Sam carefully strokes his hair again, watching as the tension in Dean’s face relaxes, as he opens his mouth and sighs, his head dropping back down onto the pillow. Sam relaxes too, even lets himself touch the curve of Dean’s cheek, his heart beating out a staccato rhythm against his ribs. Dean doesn’t stir, and Sam pulls his hand away, crossing both arms over his own bare chest. At least he’d put sweatpants on after showering, he thinks, and holds in a strangled laugh. He really should get up, get into his own bed, and hope Dean sleeps through the rest of the night all right.

Just a few more minutes, he tells himself, watching the way Dean’s lashes brush his cheeks. 

When he opens his eyes again, it’s to see Dean looking down at him, fully awake, brows drawn together. Sam’s heart skips a beat.

“Good morning,” Dean says, voice sharp. “What the hell are you doing in my bed?” 

“You, uh,” Sam stammers. “You were having a nightmare. I… you said my name. So I got in the bed…” He trails off as Dean's eyebrows go up. “It seemed to help,” he offers, weakly.

Dean sits up abruptly, his back to Sam. “They’re just fucking nightmares, Sam,” he snaps. “It’s part of the gig, you know that. You don’t need to baby me, dude.”

“But they’re not like your normal nightmares,” Sam says, sitting up himself. His neck creaks, and he rolls his head from side to side, trying to work out the crick. “You don’t normally say anything, man, and you…” He trails off again.

“And I what?” Dean turns to face him. He still looks exhausted, Sam thinks, dark circles and pale clammy skin, but his eyes are bright, searching Sam’s face. 

Sam swallows. “You’re crying,” he says, softly. “I’ve never seen… these nightmares, they’re different. They seem a lot worse. I don’t know, maybe something’s causing it—”

Dean turns away from him again, his shoulders hunching. “Yeah, they’re worse,” he growls, interrupting. “Because the Mark of Cain and all the shit that just happened was worse. But they’re still just goddamn nightmares, Sam, so stop fucking worrying, okay?” 

Sam nods, stung. “Okay,” he manages.

Dean rakes his hands through his hair, then mutters, “Sorry, I… I just don’t want to keep thinking about it, and there’s nothing either of us can do anyway. Just gotta white-knuckle through it like always. So drop it, all right?”

Sam nods again, the muscles in his shoulders unknotting a little. “All right,” he agrees. 

But he resolves to do some research into dreams later. Just in case.

He doesn’t get a chance until that night. They spend the day looking into a couple of disappearances in a town an hour from their salt and burn, but it turns out to not be their kind of thing, as one of the kids had been found that morning, hiding in a friend’s basement, and the police are pretty sure the other is in a similar situation. “Figures,” Dean mutters, and drags Sam to a bar, where they eat fries and potato skins and play pool for a few hours, until Dean finally wins, four games to three. 

“Best out of nine?” Sam asks, not because he really wants to play another two (or, more likely, one) games, but because he knows it’ll make Dean smirk at him.

“Come on, loser, let’s head back,” Dean grins. Sam swallows hard, aching to reach out and pull Dean in close and kiss that smile off of his face.

They watch old westerns when they get back to the room, curled up on their respective beds and drinking the last of the instant coffee, until Dean finally falls asleep. Sam waits a few minutes, watching, but he’s sleeping peacefully, so Sam gets up and slides into the desk chair, opening his laptop and connecting to the (admittedly kind of shitty) motel wifi. 

He spends a couple hours wading through mountains of crap about dream interpretation, trying to find if there’s any kind of monster or spirit that attacks in dreams, besides the ones he knows about. But he knows already that it’s not a baku or a hag — he’d have seen them there on Dean, for one thing. For another, baku, at least, eat nightmares, not cause them. But maybe there’s something that can attack from afar, he thinks, remembering the dream walker. Or can make itself invisible, maybe?

Or maybe Dean’s right, and there’s really nothing out there.

He’s nearly asleep over his keyboard when he finally pushes the chair back, yawning. He should probably head to bed, he thinks. Tomorrow’s Thursday, their last day here, and he should get some sleep before they start the long drive back to the bunker. Dean’s sleeping fine tonight, so there’s a good chance all this research is for nothing, anyway.

He opts instead to head to the gas station down the road and get some more coffee. He can sleep in the car.

The laptop’s asleep when he slips back into the room. He fumbles his way through the dark to the desk and sets the coffee down, then listens, but all he can hear is the buzz of the laptop’s fans and Dean’s breathing, loud and heavy like he’s on his back, but still regular. He should be good for a couple more hours at least, Sam thinks, stretching, and wakes the laptop up, squinting in the sudden harsh glow. 

Behind him, Dean yelps.

Sam turns, nearly tripping over his own feet, to see Dean writhing on the bed, clawing at the air and gasping, tears streaming down his cheeks. “Let go,” he chokes out, his whole body bucking up, slamming the headboard into the wall with a loud crack. Dean’s hands smack into the wall after it, hard enough to bruise, and Sam lunges for him, his heart in his throat. 

“Dean!” he shouts, reaching out to grab Dean’s flailing hands. 

Just as three long slashes open up on Dean’s arm.

_Darkness._

Dean freezes mid-channel change, confused. The TV’s gone, and all the stupid infomercials he’d been flipping through with it; the pile of towels he’d been sitting on is gone; even the remote in his hand is gone. He’s standing now, surrounded on all sides by a blackness so total it feels suffocating. He tries closing and opening his eyes, but it doesn’t do a damn bit of good. The darkness is too thick, too complete. 

“What the fuck,” he mutters to himself, but he can’t hear the words. He can’t hear anything, he realizes. No distant sound of traffic, or faint buzz of electronics, or even the sound of his own breathing.

There’s nothing.

_He’s been here before._

Damp wisps touch his neck, tickling and creeping across his throat. He tries to shove them off, to get away from whatever the fuck they are, but he can’t move properly. His limbs feel sluggish, slow, almost weighted down. It’s like he’s trying to fight his way through honey. “No,” he mumbles silently, forcing his feet to move, to run, even as the wisps multiply, wreathing him in dampness and dragging him to a stop. He’s panting now, panicked, his skin crawling and his heart banging against his ribs. And all the while, he hears nothing. Not a damn thing. 

Then behind him, something growls.

Dean wrenches himself around, eyes scanning the blackness. But he can’t see anything.

_He never sees anything here._

Everything clicks into place. “A dream,” he says, and this time he hears it. Then, all of a sudden, he can hear everything: his own ragged breathing, his heart thundering in his ears, and above it all, the growling, louder than before. 

Enough of this bullshit. “It’s a fucking dream,” he spits out, willing the wisps to release him. “This is just another fucking nightmare, so knock it the fuck off!”

A chorus of hisses answers him. The wisps curl around him, sticking to his skin like spiderwebs and sending chills down his spine, even as flashes of red wink in pairs at him.

Eyes.

_Maybe it’s not—_

He blinks, but the eyes are still there, all around him. Multiplying. 

And the growling is getting closer.

“Let go,” he pants, fighting the wisps in earnest now. Something hisses right in his ear just as he tears his arm free, and he lashes out at it, fist clenched. There’s a screech as he connects, a blast of hot fetid air in his face, and then pain explodes through him, ripping down his arm and flaying it open. 

The wisps release him suddenly, and he staggers back, clutching at his arm. Hot liquid flows over his fingers, coursing down his skin. _Blood._ He can hear it dripping, droplets falling to the unseen ground beneath. 

_How—_

_It’s just another fucking nightmare_ , a voice whispers, and then light flashes in his eyes, bright and blinding, making him cringe back. He can hear things slithering around him, hisses and yowls and grunts. He can hear footsteps, and something dragging across the ground toward him. He can hear the unmistakable sound of flesh being struck hard, and blood dripping. And then he hears something that makes every part of him go cold with terror.

There’s a cry of pain, and Dean doesn’t need to see to know exactly who that is.

“Sam!” he shouts, lunging forward. But something whips across his shins, and then he’s falling, falling, until he lands in what feels like mud. Gasping, he tries to get up, to get to Sam before he’s hurt even more, but his hands are stuck; the mud is like glue, and it’s all over him, making it nearly impossible to move. “I’m coming,” he cries, struggling, but it’s no good. He’s sinking now, the sludge bubbling as it sucks him down. He’s too late.

_He’s always too late._

He can see Sam now, just Sam, crumpled on the nothingness in front of him, blood streaked across his face and pooling around him, red against black. He’s utterly still, his face slack in a way Dean doesn’t want to recognize. But he does.

He does.

Dean throws himself forward, straining to reach his brother even as the sludge closes over his hips. His fingers claw at the air mere inches from Sam, trying and failing to touch him. “Sammy,” he begs, choking, his hand falling away as thick slime fills his mouth. He’s sinking fast now, almost completely submerged. But it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters.

 _It’s just a dream_.

Closing his eyes, he lets the sludge take him.

When he opens them again, still gasping for breath, Sam is there, face pale but blood-free, eyes wide and worried and _open_. “You’re awake,” he sighs, and Dean blinks up at him, panic and confusion and relief all jumbled in his head. But Sam is there, alive and unhurt, and Dean grabs onto that fact, holds it close as he tries to make sense of the rest of it. 

“Dean? Dean, man, talk to me,” Sam says, his eyes big and dewy and close, and Dean realizes three things. One, they’re in the same damn motel room they’ve been in for days, and Dean’s lying on his bed, which means this really was just a goddamn dream, or nightmare, whatever. Two, Sam is leaning over him, his hands gripping Dean’s shoulders, which means it was bad enough to get Sam worried about him again.

Three, he’s way too fucking close.

Bad enough that Sam’s face is mere inches from his, but his hands are wrapped tight on Dean’s shoulders, huge and familiar and so damn warm, and it’s all Dean can do to keep himself from grabbing onto Sam and burying himself in that warmth. He manages to get a hand on Sam’s chest and shoves him away, instead. The last thing he needs right now is to have to deal with Sam touching him like this. “Dammit, Sam, we talked about this,” he grits out, his voice shaking despite his best efforts. “They’re just freaking nightmares, so stop sleeping with me.” 

“I wasn’t sleeping with you,” Sam retorts, his grip tightening, “and they’re not just nightmares. Dean, listen to me—”

“Yes they are,” Dean interrupts, shoving at him again. But Sam doesn’t budge, and Dean’s arms are threatening to give out, dull pain throbbing through them at the effort. “Dude, get off, I’m fine—”

Sam seizes his right wrist and yanks his arm up. Before Dean can argue, Sam fixes him with his best 'don't bullshit me' face, brow furrowed, eyes blazing. Dean’s learned not to fuck with Sam when he gets that face. 

“Look at this,” Sam commands, voice low. 

Dean looks.

“Huh,” he says.

Blood is smeared across his forearm, dripping down off his elbow and dotting his t-shirt below. Three cuts split the skin, long and parallel and shredded at the ends. Claw marks. 

_It’s the same arm—_

The grip on his wrist loosens a bit, and Dean looks up to meet Sam’s eyes. “Are you...” he starts, swallowing hard. 

“Sure that it’s because of the nightmare?” Sam asks, dry. “Yeah, Dean. I am.” He straightens up, shifting his grip to Dean’s other arm and tugging. “Come on, let’s get you cleaned up.”

Dean bites back the urge to snap out some kind of protest, to get the hell away from Sam and his concern. He knows he should, that he deserves jack from Sam after everything, but… the thing is, as much as he wants to push Sam away to keep him safe, he also wants Sam’s attention, any way he can get it, and he’s not strong enough to keep saying no, especially when Sam gets mad at him for doing it. 

So he lets Sam lead him over to the table, where he sits Dean down in the chair and then disappears into the bathroom, coming back a moment later with a damp washcloth and their first aid kit. “So,” he says, sitting down on the end of Dean’s bed and taking Dean’s wrist again, “tell me everything.”

He doesn’t tell Sam everything, of course. He tells him the details, the ones that are the same dream to dream (finding himself in utter darkness, things hissing at him, the wisps trapping him), and the new ones this time (the sludge, the pain in his arm, feeling his own blood dripping over his hand). He tells Sam how long it’s been going on (since a couple weeks after they got rid of the Mark), how often it happens (practically every night), even that Sam himself, hurt (Dean can’t bring himself to say dead), has started to feature. He keeps his eyes on Sam’s hands as he talks, watching as Sam cleans the blood off and then washes the cuts with alcohol before meticulously taping all three closed, laying lines of butterfly strips down each length. It stings, but he doesn’t flinch. It’s more than he deserves, just having Sam help him.

He doesn’t tell him about the creeping sense of dread, worse every time he finds himself in that blackness again. He doesn’t tell him how badly he panicked this time, that even now he feels like he’s having trouble getting enough air in his lungs. He doesn’t tell him that he gave up at the end, instead of fighting to get to dream Sam.

Most of all, he doesn’t tell Sam that it’s his, Dean’s, problem, that Sam shouldn’t be letting Dean’s messes drag him down with him, again. He knows what Sam will say to that, and he doesn’t have the energy for that argument, not with Sam’s hands on him, so damned gentle. Not when it’s all he can do to keep from throwing himself on Sam and hauling him in close. 

“But it hasn’t been every night since we got here,” Sam points out as he wraps gauze around Dean’s forearm, his fingers deft and warm. 

Dean shrugs. “It doesn’t happen as much on hunts. You’d think it’d be better at the bunker, but nope.” He risks a look at Sam’s face. “You know, maybe we’re wrong, maybe it’s not—”

“So whatever it is can get to you through the bunker’s protections.” Sam frowns, his brow furrowing into his thinking face. Then he looks up, his eyes lighting up in a way that means he’s figured something out. “It got better when I was close to you,” he says, ignoring the sour look Dean throws him. “And we share a room when we’re on a hunt. So maybe it’s more likely to attack when you’re alone.”

“Or maybe I clawed my own damn arm up,” Dean mutters. “Sam, seriously, it’s not like I haven’t had shitty dreams for years, and—” he holds his bandaged arm up, shoving the gauze at Sam’s face— “look where they are, man. They’re right where it was—” His throat closes up. 

Sam huffs out an annoyed breath, already shaking his head. “I saw them _open up_ , Dean. This is not self-inflicted, and it’s not just some normal trauma response! Christ, for once would you just shut up and let me fucking _help you_?” 

Sam’s face is inches away, eyes fixed on his, and Dean can’t fucking handle this. “What about djinn?” he asks before he does something irreparably stupid, like kiss him. “They’ve fucked with me before. Hell, these cuts on my arms could be you, trying to get me to wake up.”

“Oh, for fuck’s — it’s not a djinn,” Sam snaps.

“Yeah, that’s what you say if this was a djinn fantasy,” Dean mumbles, shoving the chair back.

Sam’s face softens. Before Dean can move, he reaches for Dean’s arm, wrapping his long fingers around the bandaged cuts, and squeezes, enough to hurt, but not hard. “You feel that?” he asks, his voice low. He holds up his other hand, so Dean can see the jagged scar splitting his palm. “That pain? That’s real, Dean. Just like you told me. This is real. I’m real. And I’m gonna stop whatever this thing is.”

“Okay,” Dean whispers, because he needs Sam to let go of him. Because this, Sam offering to fight for him after all the shit he’s put him through, Sam willing to hold onto him, feels so damn good that Dean doesn’t trust himself. “So, what now? We mix up some dream root and go looking around in my head?”

Sam hmms, and he’s not letting go, damn it. “You think it’ll work? This thing seems to back off when I’m around.” 

“So go drink it somewhere else.” Dean pulls his arm out of Sam’s grasp and stands, resisting the urge to rub over his skin where Sam’s fingers just were. “You’re the one who wants to help so goddamn much.”

He knows it’s a low blow before he even finishes saying it. Sam glares but doesn’t rise to the bait, just gets to his feet and heads outside. Dean waits by the table, counting as he breathes, in out in out. He hears a dull thud as the trunk of the Impala slams shut and then Sam’s back, their leftover bundle of dream root clutched in one hand and their battered mortar and pestle in the other.

So they’re actually doing it.

“Sammy...” Even though he’d been the one to suggest it, Dean doesn’t really want to risk letting Sam into his dreams, and not just because there’s a chance Sam might figure out just how much Dean’s holding back. He doesn’t want the things lurking in his mind hurting Sam either. “Are you sure you want to do this? I mean, my head…”

“Can’t be a worse place than mine,” Sam says, quiet.

Dean has nothing to say to that.

They work in silence, Sam grinding the dream root while Dean boils water in the shitty motel kettle. It doesn’t take nearly long enough, and before Dean’s really had to chance to let what he’s about to do sink in, it’s ready. Sam divides it between two styrofoam cups, then reaches out and yanks a strand of Dean’s hair out.

“Shit!” Dean swears, rubbing at his scalp. Sam just smirks and drops the hair in one of the cups. “Oh, very funny,” Dean mutters, snatching the other one. “Remind me to take clippers to your head next time you’re asleep.”

“Sure you will,” Sam smiles, turning toward the door. “I’ve only heard that about a thousand times. Get your phone—” he holds up his own phone— “I’ll text you when I’m ready to drink.”

“Yeah yeah,” Dean says, frowning. “Where are you going?”

“To the car. You told me to go drink it somewhere else, remember?”

“Who says you’re the one who gets to go sleep in Baby?” Dean demands. But to his annoyance, Sam wins that argument just by looking at him. Fucking dewy puppy eyes. 

Dean sits down on Sam’s bed, glaring at the steaming cup in his hand. He checks on his gun — still in the drawer on the nightstand between the beds, safety on — and then waits, phone in hand, counting the seconds and timing his breaths with them, until it buzzes in his hand. _Ready._

“Bottoms up,” he murmurs to himself, and drinks the whole cup down.

And then he’s back there in the darkness. 

He turns slowly, searching the black, until he sees Sam — the real Sam, or at least the real dream root Sam, anyway — standing nearby, glancing around him with his eyes squinted. It’s like looking at a shitty photoshop job or someone in front of green screen without the background; there’s no context to him, no shadows or sense of depth, or any sound when Sam catches sight of him and takes a step toward him. He can’t even really tell how far away Sam is, and it’s royally fucking with his sense of perception. Dean lurches forward, reaching for him, only breathing out a sigh of relief when his hand touches Sam’s shoulder. 

“It always starts like this?” Sam asks him, his voice tight. He can hear that, at least.

Dean just nods.

Sam takes a deep breath. “Nothing so far,” he remarks. He closes his eyes for a moment, and then he’s clutching a shotgun, an exact replica of one of their sawed-offs. Right, dream root, Dean remembers. He manifests a knife of his own, a wickedly serrated version of a machete, and grips the handle tight. 

They stand shoulder-to-shoulder, listening. Waiting.

But nothing happens. No howls, no hisses, no wisps creeping across them, no glowing red eyes, no sludge threatening to drown them. No sound of any kind other than the faint rustle of their breathing. Nothing attacks. It’s fucking _quiet_. 

“Son of a bitch,” Dean mutters.

“It must be because I’m here,” Sam frets. 

Or it’s because it was just normal nightmare bullshit all along, Dean doesn’t say. “Come on,” he grunts, and starts walking, knife at the ready, waiting for the sludge to drag him to a stop, waiting for the cold wisps to wrap around him. 

“I don’t—” Sam starts, hurrying after him. His footsteps echo behind him, and Dean turns, surprised. 

He nearly drops the knife.

There’s a lake behind him. 

Not just any lake, even. It’s their lake, the one they went to for a break awhile back. He recognizes it instantly: the faint haze of the mountains in the distance, the signs proclaiming ‘No hunting’, the low wall and the tumble of boulders by the shore. Their chairs and cooler are even there, for fuck’s sake.

Dean stops and just stares, taking it in. It almost hurts to look at it after so much nothingness, but he can’t look away either. It’s quiet here too, but not so unnaturally so; he can hear the water, and the wind in the trees, and Sam’s footsteps shuffling across the grass. Sam stops right next to him, the warmth of his dream-body close, and Dean has to fight to keep himself from reaching for him. He can tell, somehow, that nothing’s going to attack them here, that nothing’s _there_. 

Which means something was before.

Sam’s been right all along, he realizes. Something _is_ after him. Not that he’s really all that surprised. The whole damn world should be after him.

But right now, it’s just him, and Sam, and the lake.

“What the hell is this?” he says, finally.

“It’s a good dream,” Sam says, sounding as surprised as him. “I didn’t think…”

“...we had those anymore,” Dean finishes.

Without talking, they go sit down in their chairs, and Dean sets the knife down on the grass. It vanishes, and he blinks at it for a moment, feeling a breeze tickle through his hair, before he turns away and opens the cooler. There are beers inside that open at a touch, and he hands one to Sam. They look at each other, and for the first time in a long time, Dean can feel a smile tugging at his lips. “Cheers?” he asks.

They clink their bottles.

Even the beer tastes good, better than most of the crappy swill they usually drink. “This is even better than the real lake,” Sam jokes after they’ve both drained their bottles. He bumps his shoulder against Dean’s. “Remember all the bugs that kept biting you?”

Dean bumps him back. “No need for sunscreen either.” He waves a hand at the sky overhead, which is picture-perfect, a light eggshell blue and the sun a cheerful blaze of yellow just above the mountains. Sam snickers and says something about Dean and freckles and lobsters, so Dean pokes him in the side, causing Sam to yelp and grab for him, and they fall to the ground in a tangled heap, both of them laughing.

They end up lying in the grass side-by-side under the trees after that, watching the leaves shift above them, their shoulders and calves just barely touching. Dean can’t even recognize the feeling at first, he hasn’t felt it in so long. But he thinks he’s happy, a little bit. Not entirely, of course. He’s still nervous, still waiting for the other shoe to drop, still too sure that this can’t last. But a little.

“I think,” Sam says, and Dean turns his head. Sam’s face is right there, and he’s looking at Dean with this open expression Dean hasn’t seen on his brother’s face in forever. Sam puts his hand on his arm, his eyes searching Dean’s, and Dean’s heart lurches. He knows what’s Sam’s going to say. He knows what Sam wants, because he does too.

He leans in closer.

“I’m waking up,” Sam says, and disappears, leaving Dean alone by the shore.

Dean sits up. The ache in his chest sharpens, and he lifts a hand to press against his sternum. 

_He’d almost given in._

Around him, the scene dissolves, the trees fading, the water evaporating, the sky fogging, until he’s in darkness again. And that’s good, Dean tells himself. 

That’s what he deserves.

Sam wakes up with a start. His cheek’s cold, almost numb, and he hisses as he unsticks it from the driver’s-side window and tries to sit up. His body protests, pins and needles tingling through his bent legs and the arm trapped between his body and the door. The styrofoam cup, which had been clasped in his other hand, chooses that moment to tumble to the floor, spilling the dregs of the dream root tea all over his jeans on the way down.

“Great,” Sam mutters, giving up and slumping back against the window. His arm twinges, so he wriggles around a little until he’s half-lying on his back, his legs loosely crossed lotus-style in front of him so that his knees just barely brush the passenger side door. It’s not comfortable, exactly, but it’s a hell of lot better than being twisted sideways like a pretzel. 

His phone’s tucked into his pocket, fortunately still dry. He shifts until he can pull it free and then opens up text messaging. _You awake?_ he sends, biting his lower lip as he waits.

No response.

Sam turns his head, enough that he can see the closed door to their room just over the curve of the steering wheel. Really, he should probably just get out of the car entirely and go back inside to check on Dean, but the thought of seeing him again, right now, without any time to process what just happened, sets his heart racing in his chest. Besides, he tells himself, if Dean’s still under the effects of the dream root, it’s better if he stays out here. Just until Dean’s awake again. 

Just until he has time to sort everything out.

 _Gonna stay out here till you wake up_ , he types. He waits another long moment after it sends, idly wriggling the fingers on his numb hand, but his phone stays silent. Dean must still be asleep, he thinks, carefully placing the phone facedown on his abdomen.

He leans his head back and closes his eyes for a moment, remembering. He wants to analyze what he saw of the nightmare part of the dream, try to figure out if there was any kind of clue or hint about what they're up against hidden in that darkness. But all he can really see is the lake, and his brother’s face, relaxed and smiling. He can see Dean’s eyes, inches from his, the same love and want Sam feels when he looks at Dean reflected back at him. “Dean,” he whispers now, his lips tingling, seeing again the look on Dean’s face as he’d leaned in, closer. He’d hardly dared believe it. He still kind of doesn’t believe it.

If only he hadn’t woken up.

Part of him wants to go rushing into the room, shake Dean until he’s awake and then — but he doesn’t know what he’d do after that. Ask Dean for his version of what happened? Demand they talk about it? Skip all of that and just kiss him? He’s pretty sure Dean would shove him away — and possibly even bolt — if he just jumped in like that. Besides, they still don’t know what it is that’s after Dean, and Sam can’t risk spooking him now, before he knows he’s safe. 

Brothers first, he reminds himself.

But maybe, when everything is over… maybe they can be something else, too.

Opening one eye, he checks his phone, even though it hasn’t buzzed. It’s been a little over ten minutes since he woke up, with no response from Dean. Quickly, he thumbs a short message to him, just _Awake??_ But there’s no reply, even after Sam sends variations of the message twice more, just in case Dean missed the alerts. His heart starts beating faster again, unease tightening his chest. Even taking into account that Dean might have drunk the entire cup of the dream root and thus been knocked out for longer than Sam, he should be awake already.

Maybe he’s too weirded out to reply, Sam can’t help worrying. Maybe Dean’s in there freaking out right now. It’s all too likely, actually, now that he thinks about it. Dean had been the one to lean in, and before Sam’d had a chance to lean in back—

“Shit,” he mutters, cold touching him. But he can picture it all too well, Dean not thinking Sam feels the same way, Dean panicking about tipping his hand, Dean taking off rather than face Sam—

He has to get in there, now.

Sam stuffs his phone back in his pocket and struggles back upright, uncrossing his legs and swinging them to the floor, until he can finally get the driver’s door open and unfold himself from the Impala. Stumbling, shaking his legs as he walks, he heads for the room, fishing the keys from his other pocket. “Dean?” he calls before he even reaches the door. “Dean, man, I’m—”

He stops. The keys hit the concrete a second later, forgotten.

The door’s open a crack.

Dean might have opened it, he tries to reason, even as he reaches for his gun. But it’s not there, and he swears silently and furiously to himself. His gun’s still in the Impala, closed in the glove box, where he’d put it before he’d texted Dean that it was time to drink. He grabs the doorknob, about to shove the door in, but then pauses, torn between not leaving Dean in there alone a second longer versus taking a few seconds to run back and grab his gun first. If something’s in there with his brother—

He stands on the stoop outside the door for a tense second, then grits his teeth and pulls his hand away from the door. He wants to rush in, every cell in his body screaming for him to get to his brother as soon as possible, but going in unarmed — he can’t risk it, not when it might mean Dean’s life. He backs away from the door, breathing hard, and turns to run. He’ll get the gun, grab the silver knife in the glove box too, and get back as fast as he can.

There’s a crash inside the room.

Sam spins back so fast he nearly falls, adrenaline and fear spiking through him. Something shatters then, the tinkle of breaking glass followed by a shout of pain. 

“Dean!” he shouts back, and practically shoves the door off its hinges to get inside.

It’s darker inside the room than he’d expected. Sam skids to a halt, panting, then fumbles at the light switch just inside the door. The light over the table flicks on, throwing a pale yellow glow across the room. The first thing he sees is the bedside lamp, strewn in pieces at his feet, the bulb splintered in tiny sparkles across the cheap carpet. 

The next is Dean.

His brother’s sprawled across Sam’s bed, pale and sweaty, blood smeared across his face from a dark slice over one cheekbone. His eyes are closed, the eyelids twitching like he’s dreaming, but he’s fighting at something, pushing at the air above him over and over as he gasps with pain, the cut on his cheek scattering scarlet droplets over his skin with every twist of his head. It looks almost like he’s hitting something, battering at some force holding him down.

But nothing’s there.

Sam lunges forward, glass crunching under his boots as he rushes across the room. Dean bucks up, striking out above him with both hands, but his body slams back down onto the mattress, the sheets tangled around his legs effectively trapping him in place.

_Or maybe…_

“Dean!” Sam shouts, clenching his hands into fists and punching at the air above Dean’s chest. He’s not sure what he expects, but it’s not to feel something disturbingly like hair slither across the back of his hand. But there’s no heft behind it, nothing substantial, and so he stumbles, nearly losing his balance before catching himself on the headboard. “Dean, wake up!” he pants, throwing another punch.

This time, he connects.

His fist stops mid-air above Dean’s chest, the flesh rippling as it collides with something solid. A screech splits the air, and the mattress dips, creaking as something scuttles across it. “Shit,” Sam gapes, head spinning. “Shit shit shit—”

Dean’s eyes fly open. “Sam?” he gasps, sitting bolt upright. “What the — _Sam_!” 

Before Sam can respond, something seizes him by the hair and yanks him down. 

His head cracks against the headboard, sending a jolt of pain through him. His knees slam into the carpet as he’s yanked down further, until his chest hits the edge of the mattress. Frantically, he tries to get up, but he’s pinned in place, his hair caught on the headboard somehow. He gropes at his hair, trying to pull it free, but it just seems to tangle around his fingers as he tries. He tries again and again, ignoring the pain throbbing through him, but it’s no use; the headboard’s grip on him just seems to tighten. 

But Dean’s in danger, and Sam’s not going to let him face an invisible foe alone. 

Gritting his teeth, he pulls as hard as he can, feeling wetness snake down in a thin trail from his scalp as a small section near his temple comes loose. “Dean!” he gasps, pain making his voice thin. He tries again, another few strands ripping free. “Dean, it’s invisible, it—”

“No!” Dean yells. There’s another crack, flesh against flesh, and then something hits the ground with an inhuman shriek. The mattress bounces as Dean scrambles across it, his knees jabbing into Sam’s side. “Hold still!” he roars, and then a gunshot rips out, deafeningly close.

Sam’s hair suddenly comes loose. He falls backward, too surprised to react, but then Dean grabs him by the shoulders and hauls him back up, until he’s kneeling between the beds. “Fucker’s gone,” Dean growls. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Sam gasps, grabbing Dean into a hug and squeezing him tight. Dean’s grim-faced and his cheek is still bleeding sluggishly, but he’s awake and alive and Sam doesn’t care about anything else right now.

Dean hugs him back briefly, then pushes out of his grip. “Come on. Grab your shit, we’re getting the hell out.” He pulls Sam to his feet, then frowns and touches Sam’s temple. His fingers are red when he pulls them away. “Fuck, Sam,” he breathes. He glances at the headboard, where Sam can see a clump of his own hair, caught between the slats. “Did you really…?”

There are a lot of different things he could say to that, but in the end Sam just says, “I had to get to you.” He touches Dean’s cheek, just under the cut, smearing his own fingertips with blood. “We should clean this up.”

Dean drags in a breath, his eyes locked on Sam’s face. Then he shakes his head, hard. “No time. We’re going _now_.”

He snatches his gun from the mattress and tucks it behind him into his waistband, then grabs his duffel and starts throwing clothes in haphazardly. Sam goes for the laptop first, shoving it into its case, and then gathers his own clothes while Dean clears out the bathroom. They meet at the door barely two minutes later, everything they can’t afford to leave behind shoved into their bags, room keys already in hand. It’s a familiar dance, one they’ve got down to a science, if one they haven’t had to do for a while.

They leave the keys on the table, Dean tossing several bills on top of them, and then run for the Impala. Sam tosses their crap in the back while Dean slides behind the wheel, starting her up before Sam’s even properly closed his own door. Dean’s knuckles are white on the wheel, his eyes shadowed as he drives, following an aimless pattern of back roads, putting distance between them and the motel and the potential consequences of firing shots at four am. Sam watches the road behind them, but it stays clear, the early dawn’s grayness unbroken by flashing red lights.

After fifteen minutes of tense silence, Sam reaches out and lays his palm on Dean’s arm, just above the gauze. He half-expects Dean to throw it off, but he doesn’t, just keeps driving, his eyes fixed firmly on the dark stripe of the road in front of them. So Sam keeps it there, waiting until they’re on the highway to ask.

“How did you know?” he says, and Dean glances at him, the gleam of his eyes barely visible in the faint light of dawn. “Where to aim, I mean?”

“You didn’t see it?” Dean asks.

Slowly, Sam shakes his head.

“Well, I did,” Dean growls, his grip on the wheel going even tighter. “It was kneeling on my chest when I woke up. Damn thing was huge, I don’t know how the hell you missed it. Too busy pulling your own hair out, jesus.” He shakes his head. “Good thing you’ve got hair to spare, dude.” He’s trying to sound light, but his voice cracks on the last word. “Sorry,” he mutters.

Sam blinks at him, opens and closes his mouth a few times. “You saw it,” he says, finally, a prickle of uneasiness tickling at the edges of his memory. No wonder Dean had fired, if he could see it.

So why couldn’t Sam? 

Dean nods. “No idea what it is, though. Kinda reminded me of a hag, but those bitches don’t cause nightmares, so that’s out. Some kind of weird revenant? Or — what was that thing, the dream eater — a baku, but this thing looked human. Well, kind of. It mostly looked skeletal.” He blows air out through his pursed lips. “Any ideas?” 

Sam stares at the horizon, breathing hard as everything snaps into place. He _remembers_ this, but they’re not his memories, not exactly. They’re _his_ memories, the Sam who’d spent months without his soul, hunting and fighting all kinds of monsters. Memories of facing something that can only be seen when it wants to be. 

Or if someone’s been to its home...

“I know what it is,” Sam says.

Dean glances sidelong at him. “You do?” 

“I do,” Sam confirms, cold certainty weighing his words. It’s difficult to remember what that Sam experienced, both to access and to relive, but he has to. For Dean. “I mean, I don’t know exactly what kind, but — Dean, I couldn’t see it. I couldn't see anything, even when I hit it. I couldn't see a damn thing.”

Dean drums his fingers on the wheel. “So that means…?”

“Think about it,” Sam urges. “We’ve come across them before. Do you remember the UFOs that weren’t UFOs?”

Dean gives him a sharp look. “That wasn’t you,” he growls.

“I know, but I can remember it, Dean.” Sam tightens his grip on Dean’s arm. “It’s them, Dean. Something you can see, but I can’t? Something that’s only interested in you when I’m not around? Like you’re marked somehow?”

There’s a beat, and then— “Son of a bitch,” Dean swears, smacking his palm against the wheel.

Sam nods, taking a deep breath. “It’s a fairy.”


	2. Chapter 2

  
**PART TWO**  
  


They stop at a motel a couple hours away, just over the border into Oregon. Close enough that if there actually is a problem with the salt-n-burn they can go back, Dean figures, but far enough that they shouldn’t be fingered as the ones who fired shots in a motel.

Not far enough, though, to escape a fairy.

“Wait,” Sam says as Dean pulls to a stop by the front entrance. He lifts the hand that he’d been resting on Dean’s arm for almost the entire drive and gestures at Dean’s face. “You’d better clean up first.”

Right. He’d forgotten. Dean grabs a sheaf of napkins from the glove box and scrubs at his cheek until Sam pronounces him acceptable, then goes inside. He checks them in on autopilot, convincing the half-asleep attendant to give them an early check-in for a room on the first floor with an extra $20, then hands over a different one of his fake credit cards to pay and takes the keycards back out to the Impala. 

He drives them around the building to their room, and they grab their stuff from the back seat and go inside without a word. “Breakfast is open till nine,” Dean grunts as Sam shuts and bolts the door. 

“Not hungry,” Sam says, heading straight for the table and setting up his laptop. Of course, Dean thinks. He’d been researching on his phone too, in the car, or at least Dean assumes that’s what he’d been doing. They haven’t really talked since Sam dropped the bomb about what they’re facing. They should, Dean knows — about far more than just fairies, if he’s perfectly honest — but he has no goddamn idea how to even begin to approach a conversation like that. So he doesn’t, and Sam hasn’t said anything either, and it just sits there between them. Left for later. Like everything.

“Me neither,” Dean mumbles, dropping his bag on the bed and glaring at it. His head aches with weariness, but much as he wants to throw himself down on the mattress and just pass the fuck out, there’s no way in hell he’s going to sleep. Possibly ever again. 

Fuck it. He makes right for the coffee maker, setting it brewing some shitty instant coffee before heading out to the Impala to gather some of their iron- and silver-bladed weapons. He raids their supply of silver bullets as well and then spends a few fruitless minutes searching the trunk before remembering that the dream root, or what’s left of it, is crammed into his own duffel. “Figures,” he mutters, and goes back inside.

“Did you get more salt?” Sam asks after he’s finished laying down all the knives in a neat row on the bed by the door. Sam’s frowning over the laptop, which has at least sixteen tabs open on the screen. It makes Dean’s head ache even more just to look at it. He doesn’t know how Sam’s doing it. He looks even more exhausted than Dean feels.

“Salt?” Dean repeats, pretty sure he should know this already.

“Fairies have to count the grains if you spill it in front of them,” Sam says slowly. There’s a wrinkle between his brows, like it’s hurting him to remember this. “You remember—?”

“Yeah, I remember,” he interrupts, voice low. He doesn’t want Sam to have to. “I’ll grab some.” 

“Get the table salt, not the rock salt, it’ll work better.”

“Right,” Dean says, and goes back out the Impala.

He sets one of the salt canisters down on the table by Sam’s left hand and tucks the other into his coat pocket. Devil’s traps can slow fairies down, he thinks he remembers, so he crouches down by the door and sketches one out with a marker, figuring he’ll just leave a couple extra hundreds behind when they leave. Sam’s still hunched over the laptop when he finishes drawing another in front of the window, so Dean pours himself a cup of the coffee, snags the other table chair and one of the knives, and starts cleaning it. 

Sam glances up at him, and Dean winces, guilt tightening his throat. The raw skin at Sam’s temple and the thin line of dried blood streaking down his cheek look even worse in actual light. “Iron?” Sam asks, that wrinkle back between his eyes. 

“Silver too,” Dean manages. He hesitates, listening to his heart pound in his ears, then offers, the words scraping out of his throat, “You want me to take care of that?” His fingers tingle at the thought of touching Sam, even if it’s just to clean him up. He takes a deep breath and points at the wound.

Sam looks up at him, the dark circles under his eyes even deeper. Absently, he touches his temple, looking surprised. “Oh yeah,” he murmurs. “Nah, it’s not bleeding anymore. I’ll deal with it later.” He looks back at the screen, his attention already back on research. On Dean’s fucking problem, as per usual.

Dean nods, his heart clenching in his chest. God, he fucking hates this. It fucking figures, too: of all the things out there after him, it just _had_ to be fairies. Dean doesn’t like recalling his time in their world, but far worse, Sam’s being forced to remember them, forced to sift through the memories of the time he spent soulless, and it’s hurting him, Dean can tell. He wants to tell Sam not to bother, to just step back and let Dean handle it. Sam shouldn’t have to go through this crap again, and Dean has a sinking feeling that it won’t matter anyway. There’s not much hope in fighting fairies; iron and silver only hurt them, not kill them — he doesn’t think much _can_ kill them, especially not the bigger ones — and it’s about time one of his debts finally came up due. The last the thing he wants is for Sam to get taken down with him. But he knows better than to suggest Sam leave him to face it alone. He knows what Sam will say.

But if one of them goes down, it’s Dean. Maybe he can’t protect Sam anymore, but he can make sure of that.

He’s cleaning Sam’s Beretta and watching the room lighten as the sun crawls toward noon when Sam sits up straight, excitement lighting up his tired face. “What?” Dean asks, setting the gun down at the end of the row.

“I found it!” Sam grins, actually fucking grins, at him. “It’s a mære.”

Dean raises an eyebrow. “A mare? Like a freakin’ horse?”

“No, it’s a kind of fairy—” 

“Obviously,” Dean can’t resist interjecting.

“—that can cause and feed off the negative energy of dreams,” Sam continues, ignoring him. “It’s where the ‘mare’ in the word ‘nightmare’ comes from, actually.” He gestures at the screen, talking faster now, his face lit in his figured-shit-out expression. “There’s a lot of varying lore on them, but all the accounts agree on a few details—”

Dean gets up and circles around to look over Sam’s shoulder at the laptop screen, which shows a painting of a sleeping young woman sprawled on a bed with a creepy little furry monster crouched on her chest and snarling. He touches his own chest, remembering the thing kneeling on him, and shudders. “So one’s been sitting on me every damn time I have a nightmare? Then why the hell haven’t I seen it before?”

Sam shakes his head, looking thoughtful now. “I don’t think you would have. It doesn’t have to be in contact with the human it’s feeding on, just nearby, and you haven’t shown physical signs before, right?” He gestures at Dean’s wrapped arm. “I think the last couple times are the first it’s been here in person.”

Dean taps the screen, right on the painted bugger’s ugly little face. “Okay, but it doesn’t look like that. It’s bigger, longer hair, gray skin. So how can you be sure—?” 

“Well, it causes nightmares,” Sam says, rolling his eyes. “And you can see it and I can’t, so it’s definitely a fairy, and being hurt in your dreams and still having the wounds when you wake up are something else all the accounts agree on. Plus…” Sam touches the hair by his bloodied temple, making a face. “They can tangle the hair of mortals. And tree branches, for some reason.” 

“Good thing it’s going after me and not you then,” Dean tries to joke. Sam just gives him such an epically bitchy face that Dean holds up his hands in defeat. “Yeah yeah, you’re right, that explains what happened at the motel. Bitch practically tied you to the headboard.” He shoves aside any thoughts saying that might have brought up. “Okay, so it’s a mære. Hip fucking hooray, we know what’s doing it. But why? If this is about me being ‘marked as Avalon's’ or whatever, why not just fucking kidnap me again? Why torture me first?”

Sam shakes his head. “I’m not sure—”

“So it’s fucking with me just for _fun_?”

Sam blinks a few times, then says slowly, “And to absorb your energy. Fairies are all about energy. And that kind of explains why _now_ , actually. They could tell when I didn’t—” he barely falters on the next words; most people wouldn’t even notice, but Dean fucking does— “have a soul. They probably waited until—”

“—the Mark was gone.” Dean wraps his hand around his bandaged forearm. Damned if you do, he thinks bitterly. 

Sam rubs his eyes. “Yeah.”

“So how do we kill it?” 

“I’m not sure we can.” Sam sighs. “I could try the dismissal to send it back to the fairy realm, but I’m not sure that works if there wasn’t a deal to begin with. And I… I’m not sure I remember it anyway.”

Dean hates that look on Sam’s face, even more than he hates fairies. “Don’t bother, I doubt it would do much good anyway,” he says hurriedly. “It never comes when you’re here.”

“Or when you’re awake,” Sam grumbles. “As for stopping it… Everything I find says they have to be fought in the dream world. So taking the dream root should theoretically make that possible.” He rakes his hands through his hair, tangling it more and making Dean wince. “But we already know that it doesn’t show if I go with you.”

“So I’m on my own,” Dean says, and a part of him is actually a little relieved at the news. “Okay, so I take the dream root and, I don’t know, imagine myself a sawed-off and some iron rounds and blow the motherfucker away?” And if it doesn’t work, Dean thinks, at least Sam won’t be with him. At least he can keep that promise to himself.

Sam drags his fingers through his hair, wincing as they catch. “I guess that’s our best plan,” he mumbles. “I just — I want to stay with you, I don’t want to leave you alone.”

You should, Dean doesn’t say. “You can’t stay with me every single damn second,” he points out instead. “We don’t have any fairy weapons. We can’t microwave the bitch. The knives won’t kill it, and we’re not even sure we can trap it.” He gestures at the devil’s traps. “I’ve gotta try it, Sam.” 

“I know, I know.” Sam drops his head into his hands, breathing hard. “I hate this,” he mumbles, his voice thick.

Dean swallows, hard, and then touches Sam on the shoulder. “Me too,” he says, gruff. “But I’m doing it.”

Sam stands abruptly, pulling Dean into a tight hug. Dean stiffens, but Sam wraps him up close, and he’s so warm and solid, so _Sam_ , that Dean can’t fight it, not anymore. He lets his head drop onto Sam’s shoulder, his arms stealing around Sam’s waist. Closing his eyes, he takes a shuddering breath, breathing Sam in. It’s almost too good, Sam’s scent and heat and body so damn close, but Dean can’t bring himself to let go. 

“Call me,” Sam murmurs, his voice close to Dean’s ear. Little shivers ripple down Dean’s spine, the hairs on the back of his neck stirring. “Before you take the dream root, plug your phone in and call me. I’ll listen the whole time you’re out, and if it sounds like you’re in danger, I’m there.”

“I don’t—” Dean starts, but Sam cuts him off.

“Don’t tell me not to help,” he says, fierce. “Don’t push me away, not now, not when I just got you back and we finally—” He breaks off, breathing hard, and Dean lifts his head enough to see Sam’s eyes, blazing with frustration and fear and — his chest clenches — what’s unmistakably love.

“I’m not,” he says in a low voice. Not worth it? Not pushing Sam away? What was he planning to say, anyway? What _can_ he say? But he doesn’t get a chance to finish, because Sam’s cupping the back of his neck with one hand now, leaning their foreheads together, and he’s so damned close—

He has no idea which of them goes for it first. Maybe it’s him, finally breaking after all these years of holding back. Or maybe it’s Sam, finishing what they started at the lake. Either way, the next thing Dean knows, Sam’s mouth is on his, his hands clutching at his face, holding him close as they trade desperate kisses. 

Sam’s lips are soft, softer than Dean had expected, but his arms are just as strong as he had imagined when he’d let himself, holding him so close he can feel the rise and fall of Sam’s chest against his. Dean finds himself dragging on Sam’s shirt, pulling him in even closer, pressing up until Sam’s a solid wall of heat against him. He imagines he can feel Sam’s heart too, beating against him, waking up parts of him that have been dead for a long time. He can feel warmth spreading through him, followed by a torrent of sparks that seem to light him up from within with every brush of Sam’s lips. And he realizes, then, that they can talk without words, that they can say everything they need to like this, their mouths fused together, their breath mingling, their bodies aligned.

They kiss until Dean’s lips feel raw, until he tastes blood, trickling from the reopened cut on his cheekbone. He breaks the kiss then, turning his face away from Sam’s and resting his forehead on Sam’s collarbone. He’s not sure he can look at him right now, not sure he can contain all the emotions pulsing through him. He hasn’t felt like this in so long. 

He hasn’t _felt_ in so long.

Sam’s fingers touch his cheek, tender. “Let me bandage that?” he asks softly. 

Dean nods, closing his eyes and fighting the urge to cry as Sam’s fingers gently wipe the blood away. He keeps them closed while Sam lays a line of tiny butterfly bandages on his cheekbone, because if he opens them, if he sees Sam’s face right now, eyes inches from his, lips pink and swollen, he won’t be able to keep it together. 

“I’m going in, Sammy,” he says when Sam’s done. “I’m ending this now.”

“I know.” Sam tips his chin up, leans his forehead against Dean’s. “Just… promise me you’ll fight?”

Dean opens his eyes then and drags up a smile. His heart’s beating a tattoo against his ribs and his throat’s tight, but he does it. “Hey, I kicked fairy ass before, got myself out of their realm.” He reaches up with a trembling hand and cups the back of Sam’s head. “I can take this one on too.” 

There isn’t much he can do for Sam, he knows that. There’s even less he thinks he should do. But he can do this much. For Sam, he can fight. He wants this thing between them, whatever it is. And for the first time since he realized what he was up against, he thinks that maybe, just maybe, he might even win. 

Because now, he cares if he comes back.

They stand like that for a long time, foreheads pressed together, holding each other close. Sam keeps waiting for Dean to end it, to push him away and say something about how they’d better get working, but he doesn’t. If anything, he presses himself closer, both hands cupping the back of Sam’s neck, his body warm and solid and real.

Sam never wants to let go.

But the lack of sleep and food is catching up with him, and when he starts swaying on his feet, Dean finally pulls back enough to say, “Sammy?”

“‘M’okay,” Sam mumbles, pulling him back into the hug. “Just — kinda dizzy.” 

Dean mutters something under his breath that Sam’s pretty sure is some kind of self-condemnation, at least until he adds, “You never slept at all last night either, I’ll bet. When’s the last time you ate anything?”

“Um,” Sam says. “That wasn’t coffee? Dinner yesterday. I think.”

Dean makes an irritated sound and shifts his grip from Sam’s neck to his shoulders. “Food first, then,” he says, and herds Sam backwards until the backs of his knees hit the edge of one of the beds. Sam makes a noise of protest, trying to bury his face in the crook of Dean’s neck, but Dean fends him off. “Jesus, you’re a freaking orangutan,” he grumbles, unwinding Sam’s arms from around his neck. “Sit down, I’ll go grab something from the place across the street.”

“Wait,” Sam calls after him, teetering slightly, and Dean turns back, eyebrows raised questioningly. His hair’s mussed, his eyes still shadowed, but his lips are full and his cheeks are flushed pink, and he’s the best thing Sam’s seen in a long, long time. Ignoring the mild tremor in his hands, he cups Dean’s face and kisses him hard, then lets go and sinks down onto the mattress before his legs give out entirely. “Okay, now you can go.”

Dean snorts. He starts for the door, then stops and turns back. “Be right back,” he says, voice rough as he smooths Sam’s hair back from his face. Sam leans his face against Dean’s palm and closes his eyes, making a happy noise when he feels Dean’s lips brush his forehead. 

Then he’s gone.

True to his word, Dean’s back in less than ten minutes, two styrofoam carryout boxes in one hand and a drink tray with two cups of orange juice in the other. Sam, who’d been sitting with his head bowed and his hands on his knees, jerks awake. “I got pancakes,” Dean announces, closing Sam’s laptop and setting it aside. “Come and get ‘em.”

Sam pushes himself upright, breathing in deep until the room steadies, then pads over to the table, where Dean’s setting out plastic forks and little rip-top containers of syrup and butter. “Looks good,” he says, snagging one of the orange juices and taking a long draught before lowering himself down into his chair. 

Dean puts one of the boxes in front of him and then pulls the other chair over with his ankle. “Eat up,” he orders, and points his fork at Sam. “And you’re putting syrup on those, dude, no arguments.”

“Who says I’m going to argue?” Sam smiles back. He feels better already.

They eat in companionable silence, their knees brushing under the table. The pancakes aren’t bad, even drenched in all the syrup Dean pushes on him, thick and fluffy and golden. Sam eats every bite, even soaks the plastic tines of his fork in the syrup puddle left behind and licks them clean. His head’s still pounding, his eyes burning with fatigue, but his mind’s clearer now, his hands steady. 

“So,” he says quietly. Dean sets down his fork. “What do we do now?” He glances at the window, which is a bright square of light, even with the curtains closed. “I’m thinking maybe we should wait to make the dream root until it’s—”

“You,” Dean interrupts, getting to his feet, “are taking a nap.”

“Like hell I am.” Sam shoves his chair back hard enough to almost tip it over. He’d hoped that they were done arguing about this, but he’s not surprised. Irritated, but not surprised. 

“You’re still barely running above empty,” Dean argues, “and—”

Sam surges forward and grabs Dean’s shoulders. “If you think I’m going to just lie down and let you go off and take this thing on _alone_ —”

“I think if you want to help me,” Dean growls back, “then you’re damn well getting some goddamn sleep first.” He grips Sam’s forearms and yanks him forward. Off guard, Sam stumbles toward him, and Dean pulls him into an embrace. “Dumbass,” he breathes into Sam’s hair. “I’m not backing out, this isn’t about that. You and me, Sam, we protect each other, and you look like shit right now. You practically fucking _fell over_ earlier, so stop arguing and get some goddamn sleep before we take this bitch out, okay?”

“Okay,” Sam whispers, laying his cheek against Dean’s. “But you’re coming with me.”

Dean barks out a laugh. “Seriously? Me, sleep right now?”

“It doesn’t come when I’m close,” Sam murmurs, pressing his lips just under the bandage on Dean’s cheek. “And you haven’t slept much either, you know. And you’re the one—” Dread momentarily seizes him, making his throat close. He fists in his hands in Dean’s shirt and takes a deep breath, then finishes, “You’re the one who has to fight it. I’m just backup.”

Dean sighs, turning his face so their lips brush. “Let me guess. You won’t go unless I do.”

“Yep,” Sam says, kissing him. “Glad we got that cleared up.”

“Fine. Bitch.” Dean deepens the kiss, his hands stealing up to thread through Sam’s hair. He tastes sweet and a little smoky, a flavour Sam knows is all Dean’s own, and he drinks it in, his head spinning again. But it’s good, it’s perfect, and he barely notices when Dean draws him across the room without breaking the kiss, until they reach the far bed. He follows Dean down onto it, wrapping himself around him and kissing him until he’s breathless, until he’s so tired he can barely think anymore. He falls asleep like that, sharing Dean’s air, his head pillowed on Dean’s uninjured arm. 

He doesn’t dream.

When he wakes up, the room’s grown dim, the window barely discernible from the rest of the room except for a faint glow around the edges. Dean’s sprawled next to him, still asleep, his injured arm flung up above his head. Sam’s heart does a weird little twist in his chest at the sight of him, eyes closed, mouth hanging open, hair smushed flat on one side and sticking up on the other. He has to make it through this, Sam thinks, touching the curve of Dean’s cheek. He can’t lose him. Not now.

He lies there with Dean as long as he can, watching the shadows lengthen around them. Eventually, though, nature calls, and carefully, he untangles himself from Dean and goes to the bathroom, bringing the empty coffee carafe with him. After he’s done, he brushes his teeth and then makes a face at himself in the mirror. His hair’s an absolute mess, and the blood from last night is still on his cheek, dried and flaking, but at least the spot where he’d actually lost the hair doesn't look bad after he finishes washing his face clean. Once his hair’s been tamed into some semblance of order, he can’t even really see it anymore. He looks fine, actually, he decides after appraising himself for a moment. Ready to take anything on. 

Dean’s awake when he comes out. “Hey,” he greets Sam, tossing him an energy bar. “You look better.”

“You too,” Sam says, tucking the bar into his pocket. He does, too; the shadows under Dean’s eyes are almost gone, and he looks rested for the first time in a long while. Sam just hopes it’s enough. “Any dreams?”

Dean shakes his head. “Nada.” 

“Good.” Sam hesitates, then holds up the filled carafe. “Should I…?”

Dean stills, his face drawing closed for a moment. Then he nods. “Might as well. We should pack everything up too, get it all in the car. Just in case.” He stands, stretching, and then heads for the bathroom. “But eat that first,” he says over his shoulder. 

“Yes, sir,” Sam mutters, and goes to boil the water.

It’s full dark, nearly eleven pm, by the time they’re ready. The motel’s been quiet since about nine-thirty, not even any car doors opening and closing. It’s only about half-full, or so Sam assumes from the scattered cars actually parked in the lot. Small favors, he thinks. “Think it’s late enough?” he asks Dean.

Dean glances at the single mug of dream root tea sitting on the nightstand, steam still curling in the air above it. He looks paler now, Sam thinks, but his shoulders are set. Determined. “Let’s get it the fuck over with,” he says. 

He picks up Sam’s gun and quickly loads it. Silver bullets, Sam realizes, taking the gun when Dean holds it out to him, handle first. “Iron knife, silver bullets?” he asks. “What about iron rounds?”

Dean shrugs. “Fuckers are fast,” he grunts. “Better your Beretta than a sawed-off.” He picks up one of the two iron daggers they hadn’t packed back up, a wickedly curved thick-bladed one, and holds that out to him. “Showtime.”

Sam takes the blade, then sets both it and his gun down on the table and pulls Dean into a fierce hug. Dean starts, then hugs him back just as hard, his face pressed against Sam’s neck. “Come back,” Sam whispers to him, vehement. “You hear me, Dean? You fight it, and you _come back_.”

“Okay,” Dean mumbles back, “okay,” and then they’re kissing, frantic, their teeth clacking together and their lips bruising. It’s all desperation and no finesse, and Sam’s mouth aches when they finally pull apart, breathing hard. “Go,” Dean rasps, voice thick. “Go, Sammy.”

“I’ll call you in a second,” Sam promises, and goes.

They split up like they did before, Dean staying in the room to take the dream root while Sam goes out to the Impala. This time, though, he makes sure to keep both his gun and the blade with him as he slides onto the seat, his gazed fixed on the closed motel room door. One of the salt canisters is stuffed in his pocket, pressing against his leg as he pulls his phone from the other pocket and dials. “I’m here,” he says, flipping it to speaker and setting it on the dash in front of him. He wants his hand on his gun, not the phone.

“Just in time,” Dean says, his voice tinny from the speaker.

“You left the door unlocked?” Sam asks without taking his eyes from it. He can just barely make out a shadow moving against the curtains of the window. Dean sitting down on the bed, his arm picking something up. 

“Yeah, Sammy, I did.” A pause. “I’m drinking it now.”

“Leave the phone on,” Sam says. He watches the shadow move, the blur of Dean’s head tipping back, listens to the sound of Dean’s throat working. “Dean?” 

“Yeah?”

“I’m…” But there aren’t really words for what Sam wants to say. He closes his eyes, his lips tingling at the memory of Dean’s on them. He wants to remind Dean, again, to make sure to come back. He wants to tell Dean that despite everything, he wants Dean there with him, more than ever. He wants Dean, with him, as long as they have. “Here,” he finishes finally.

“I know.” Dean’s voice is quiet. “Me too, Sammy, I—”

Sam hears a few muffled scrapes, and looks up just in time to see Dean’s form flop back. Faintly, he hears the rustle of sheets as Dean lands on them. Dean must have dropped the phone, he thinks, frowning. But he can hear the springs on the bed groaning, so he’ll hear it if Dean gets in trouble. He hopes.

He waits.

The minutes tick by, so slowly Sam’s almost convinced something’s wrong with his watch. He can hear the occasional sound of Dean mumbling in his sleep, and something that might be him shifting on the bed, but nothing that sounds like an attack. Sam debates setting the gun down and taking a swig from the thermos of coffee Dean had put in the car after their last trip out, but he’s convinced that if he does, that’s the moment he’ll hear Dean scream.

It’s been almost an hour with no change. Sam shifts, trying to relieve the ache in his legs without losing sight of the room, when the door to the room suddenly swings open. He sits bolt upright, kneeing the car door open and surging to his feet in one motion. He won’t be able to see the mære going in, he knows, But it must be here.

Then Dean steps out of the room.

“Dean?” Sam says in surprise. He hastily checks that the safety’s on, tucks the gun in his waistband, and then lopes over to Dean, who’s not looking at him. “What happened, man? I didn’t hear anything, did you fight it?” He reaches out to catch Dean’s hand. “Dean?”

Dean laughs, suddenly, and his hand cracks across Sam’s face.

Sam’s too surprised to catch himself before he falls onto his ass on the pavement. The knife clatters to the ground next to him, and he grabs for it, even as he’s reaching into his pocket for the canister of salt. “Mære!” he barks, thumbing the cap off.

Dean’s head turns to look at him. “What do you mean?” he asks, but Sam knows already. It’s not Dean at the controls. 

Sam pours a line of salt out on the ground in front of him. Dean’s eyes flick down to it, then freeze. He snarls, and for a moment something flickers into view above his head. An emaciated face. Skeletal hands, the spidery fingers wrapped tight around Dean’s face. Stringy black hair. Burning red eyes.

Hissing, Dean’s body kneels and reaches for the salt. “ _One_ ,” it snarls. “ _Two. Three._ You’re interfering with our plans, human.”

Gritting his teeth, Sam lifts the knife and swipes at what looks like the empty air above Dean’s head. “Let my brother go,” he growls.

“ _Four. Five._ Oh no no no. _Six. Seven._ This one is _ours_ , life and soul, and we intended to collect. _Eight. Nine._ But don’t worry.” For a moment, Sam can see the face again, peering over the crown of Dean’s head, its sharp black teeth stretched wide in a grin. “ _Ten. Eleven._ You won’t be alive to care either way.” Its eyes flash, and Sam jerks back, but not fast enough. A line of pain opens up on his cheek, blood pouring down his chin and dripping to the pavement. “ _Twelve. Thirteen…_ ”

“Dean!” Sam shouts, scrambling back out of range and drawing the gun from his waistband. He aims with shaking hands, but the mære is invisible again. He bites his lip, tasting blood, and tries to force his hands steady. But he can’t pull the trigger, not when there’s a chance he’ll hit Dean and not the creature riding him. “Dean, fight it!”

“Quiet!” it spits. “No fighting me now, human. Too late for that. _Sixteen. Seventeen…_ ”

Sam spits out blood and grabs up the knife again. It’s not too late. It can’t be too late. He just needs to buy Dean a little more time. If he can injure it here, then maybe, in the dream world, Dean will be able to beat it.

He rises to his feet, backing away and circling around, eyes firmly on the crouched figure of his brother. The voice keeps muttering numbers without pause, which he hopes means it’s not paying attention to him anymore. Gritting his teeth, he tucks the gun back in his waistband — he can’t risk it — and readies the knife as he soundlessly creeps up behind it.

Please, he thinks, and slashes the knife at the back of Dean’s head. It sticks in the air maybe six inches from his hair, and an unearthly shriek fills the parking lot, loud enough to make Sam drop the knife and clap his hands over his ears. The mære flashes back into view, the knife stuck between its shoulder blades. It screeches again, screaming out a word Sam doesn’t recognize, but it doesn’t let go of Dean, doesn’t turn to face him. If anything, it clings harder and bows its head back down, letting its hair drape down over Dean’s face before it vanishes again. He can still see the knife, though, seemingly hovering in the air above Dean’s head.

He just hopes it’s enough.

But he’s not going to just sit and wait, either. Panting with pain, he reaches behind him for the gun. His fingers have just closed around it when something slams into him, knocking him back down to the blacktop. He sprawls onto his back, just managing to jerk his head up in time to avoid a collision. The gun jabs him in the back, sending a wave of pain through him. That’s going to bruise, he thinks, dazed. “Dean?” he wheezes, wincing. 

Something yowls in response.

Sam blinks. Crouched on his chest is, of all things, a cat. No, he realizes immediately, not a cat. It’s too big, body too long and sinewy, eyes too red. It’s all black, though a spot on its chest glows white as it rears back, its mouth opening wider than what would be possible for a real cat as it roars out a hiss. The paw it lifts is far different too, the toes almost finger-like and devoid of fur, the claws flashing silver in the light filtering down from the parking lot lights.

Another fairy.

It swipes at his neck, and Sam rolls, scrabbling desperately for the gun. The cat rolls with him, claws pinpricking his skin through his shirt as it hangs on. “Human,” it hisses contemptuously, and rakes its claws over his chest, splitting the fabric. Sam ignores the sharp sting of pain and swings his fist at it, connecting with the side of its body. It staggers but hangs on, shaking its head and glaring at him, and Sam takes the moment it spends righting itself to grab behind him for the gun. Panting, he yanks it free and slams the muzzle against the side of the beast, flipping the safety off and pulling the trigger before the beast can do more than yowl, “No!”

The gun roars, and the cat screeches, leaping away from him, its side smoking. Sam fires again, catching it in the shoulder, and it falls, rolling across the blacktop until it collides with the wheel of a badly-parked sedan. Gasping, Sam crawls after it, coming to a halt a foot away. It looks up at him, eyes flashing red, and bares its teeth.

Sam shoots it between the eyes.

Silver alone doesn’t kill fairies. Nothing does, save something imbued with fairy magic, or overwhelming their bodies with injury before they have a chance to escape or heal. Most of them are too big for that, too full of energy and power to be trapped long enough, but sometimes it can work. Like trapping a tiny one in a microwave and inundating it with radiation until it explodes.

Or blowing holes in a cat-sized one’s body and filling it with silver.

Sam sets the gun against the white spot on its chest and pulls the trigger one last time. The cat thing gives a long thin yowl, and then its body collapses in on itself, crumbling into ash. Sam reaches out with his free hand and rakes his hand through the pile, scattering the ashes to the air. Then he drags himself up onto his knees and shuffles back to Dean.

His brother’s lying on the pavement, cheek pressed against the line of salt, hands splayed. “Dean,” Sam gasps, grabbing for his brother’s shoulders, not caring that the mære might still be there. But he doesn’t hear it counting, doesn’t see the knife anymore at all. And Dean is breathing, he can hear it, can feel his chest rising and falling. But his eyes are still closed. “Dean, man, come on,” he begs, pulling Dean up into his arms. “It’s gone, it’s got to be gone, which means you’re okay now. You’re okay, Dean, wake up. Wake up.” He kisses Dean’s temple, ignoring the stinging on his cheek as tears drip down his face. “Please, Dean.”

Dean doesn’t respond.

Sam holds him tighter, closing his eyes as he does something he hasn’t done in years.

He prays.

He’s at the lake again.

Dean turns in a slow circle, searching the trees, the water, the jumble of rocks leading up to the low retaining wall separating the lake from the shore. But there’s nothing, he realizes. Not even the sound of the wind, despite the gently-swaying grass.

Knife, he thinks, and a moment later feels the weight of a blade gripped in his palm. He has no idea if dream iron will do jack shit, but if all the crap Sam found about fighting mæres in dreams is true, then _something_ ought to work.

“Come out!” he shouts, turning in a slow circle. “You want to fuck with me? Then get your skinny ass out here and do it!”

Laughter, faint but unmistakable, splits the air.

 _Stupid human_ , a voice says. It seems to come from nowhere and everywhere at once: it’s in the shaking of the leaves, in the ripple of the grass, in the lapping of the water. But then Dean sees little wisps, the ones he’s so used to encountering in darkness, shimmering the air in front of him. _That’s not what we want from you._

“Then what the hell do you want?” he spits at it.

_You know._

“Yeah, I know,” Dean says, grim. “You want to drag me back to your shitty-ass realm. Well, listen up, asshole, it didn’t go so well for you last time you freaks kidnapped me—”

 _Wrong._ The voice sounds amused now.

Something cold touches his throat. 

Dean slashes at the air in front of him, but too late; a burst of pain staggers him, and he grabs for his neck, gasping for breath and terrified that he’s already lost, that even now he’s bleeding out, and Sam will have to listen to him die over the damn phone. But there’s no blood where he touches, no sliced-open skin. He hears laughter again.

 _Not yet,_ the voice taunts. _You have to face your nightmare first._

Dean renews his grip on the dream-knife. “Then come out and fucking fight me, bitch!”

The grass in front of him ripples, dizzying patterns forming as the blades flatten and spring back up. Dean glares down at it and thrusts out his free hand. A moment later, he’s holding a dream version of his lighter. “That all you got?” he yells. A flame — much larger than the one his lighter can make in the real world — flares up from it, crackling loud enough to almost cover the mære’s reply.

_I haven’t even started._

Everything goes quiet again. Dean turns slowly, searching the air for signs of disturbance. The tree shakes, and then a fierce winds snaps the air, extinguishing the flame and throwing him to his knees. Pain shocks through him at the contact, but he scrambles back and lifts the knife again, panting. “Nice try,” he sneers. “You kind of suck at this nightmare schtick, you know that? You really think this shit scares me anymore? What next, more blackness? Maybe some sludge? Oh, I know, you’ll try to choke me again—”

And then Sam is there.

“Dean,” he says, holding out his hands. “Dean, I couldn’t let you face it alone, I had to come.” He reaches for Dean’s shoulders, his eyes big and dewy, his hair flopping down around his ears like it always does these days. Dean steps back, his heart wrenching. He looks just like the brother Dean left behind, the brother he’s loved his whole life, the brother he’d kissed just a little while ago and promised to come back to. But he knows it’s not. It’s the mære, trying something new. 

“What’s your game?” he snarls, pointing the tip of the blade at not-Sam’s throat. “You gonna torture him in front of me again? I’ve got news for you, bitch. I know it’s a dream now. I know it’s you.”

“Dean, it’s me,” the fake Sam pleads. “Where’s the mære?”

“Don’t give me this bullshit!” Dean snarls, pressing the point against the thing’s neck. “I thought you were supposed to be scaring me, not pissing me the fuck off!” 

A drop of blood spills down the blade, red and shining. “Dean,” not-Sam whispers, sounding so hurt, so disappointed, that for a second Dean’s grip on the knife falters. _There’s a chance, isn’t there?_ some traitorous voice in his head whispers. The mære? His own thoughts? _That Sam took dream root and came after you?_

“I know you’re not him!” he shouts out loud. 

Sam’s face suddenly goes cold. “I should have known you’d do this,” he spits. “You don’t care about what I want, do you? You never have. You know what, Dean? Fight the mære by yourself. I don’t care if you come back or not.”

_I don’t care if you come back._

Sam grabs Dean’s hand, the one wrapped around the hilt of the dream-knife, and twists, hard. Dean’s fingers go numb, and the knife falls to the grass at his feet. Pick it up, he thinks, but he can’t move. He can’t take his eyes from Sam’s face, hard with anger, his eyes narrowed and burning with hatred. 

“Sam,” he whispers.

It’s not him, he tells himself, remembering Sam from earlier, lips on his, making him promise to fight. Remembering Sam’s voice over the phone, telling him he was there. He knows this isn’t the real Sam. He _knows_ it.

“Go ahead and die for all I care,” Sam snarls.

It’s not the real Sam. But this is the Sam he’s been afraid of seeing for years, the Sam he knows he deserves.

And this is his worst nightmare. 

Sam laughs, suddenly, and then pain rips through Dean, sending him reeling. He looks down, gasping, to see his own dream-knife embedded in his gut. “Finally!” Sam (not Sam, he knows it, why the fuck did he let it get to him?) crows.“You’re mine now, human, mind _and_ body. And soon?” He — _it_ — reaches out and digs its fingers into Dean’s temples, sinking them into his skin and sending enough pain through his head to make his vision blur. It’s worse than the gut wound, but it’s nothing compared to the realization that this it. He’s failed, and Sam — the real Sam — is going to suffer because of him. 

Again.

The mære grins at him, its fingers wrenching at his skull. “Soon we’ll have your soul.”

No, he thinks, anger surging up to blot out the fear. Not again. Not this time. 

Dean tries to fumble for the knife, tries to pull it free from his abdomen, but his fingers slip in the blood. Not real, he tells himself, but he can’t get a grip, can’t focus through the pain. He tries to breathe, but that hurts too. Everything hurts now, so much that he can’t even open his eyes. He can hear the mære talking, saying something, but he can’t make out the words. 

Focus, he tells himself. He’s been in worse pain than this. He’s been in worse situations than this. This is just some fucking fairy trying to screw with him. He’s not going to let it win, not going to let it make him break his word. He’s going to fight it, and win, and go back to the real Sam. Like he promised. 

Panting, he tries again to go for the knife, but his hand slides off again, his fingers cramping. Gritting his teeth, he goes to try with the other hand.

There’s something in it.

The mære screams suddenly, and for a moment the pain lessens, enough for Dean to open his eyes again. The creature before him no longer looks like Sam; it looks like what he’d glimpsed earlier, a skeletal almost-human thing, with ragged black hair and tight gray skin stretched over sharp bones. “Twenty,” it hisses, lips peeled back in a snarl. “Twenty-one. Twenty-two. Curse your brother! I’ll kill him next, I swear it, make him see his worst nightmares and then gut him where he lies—”

“No you won’t,” Dean rasps, and jams the lighter under its chin.

The flame is just as big as before. It engulfs the mære’s head, crackling across its skin, burning its hair to smoke before Dean even jerks his hand away. “Twenty-eight!” the mære wails, yanking its hands from Dean to beat at the flames. But it’s losing, and Dean stumbles back from it, gasping, groping feebly at the protruding knife hilt. The fire roars as it screams, “Twenty-nine! Cait sìth, he’s out here! Take his soul! Thirty! Thirty-one—”

The mære collapses into ash.

Panting, Dean wills his fingers clean, then grasps the handle of the knife and easily pulls it free. The pain vanishes, along with the dream-knife, and when he looks down, the blood and even the tear in his shirt are gone.

“I did it,” he whispers.

He closes his eyes, willing himself to wake up. He needs to see Sam _now_ , needs to tell him that it’s over, that he didn’t give up. Needs to know for sure that Sam wants him back. “Come on,” he mutters, curling his hands into fists. “Wake up. Wake up. Wake up.”

“Dean?” he hears, and opens his eyes to see Sam’s face hovering above his, just barely visible in the low light. He looks wrecked, eyes wide with fear, hair a total mess, blood smeared across one of his cheeks. They’re in the parking lot, Dean realizes slowly; he’s half-lying on the pavement, and Sam is kneeling next to him, clutching Dean in his arms. Dean has a million questions: how did he get out here, what happened to Sam’s face, if there mære is still around, why Sam looks so damned freaked out. But they can go over that shit later, because he knows, suddenly, the answer to the last one. Sam’s worried about him.

Sam cared if he came back.

“Hey, Sammy,” he rasps out, and reaches up to touch Sam’s cheek. The blood is dry, to his relief. “I won.”

Sam sucks in a breath, his eyes suddenly sparkling. “Dean,” he mumbles, hauling him in close and hugging him so tight Dean squeaks. He lifts his other hand, cups Sam’s face between his palms, and touches his lips to his. Sam kisses him back hard, desperate, his own hands pressing into Dean’s back. “Oh god, I thought — I thought you weren’t — shit, we need to get out of here, I shot the other fairy and I’m surprised no one’s shown up to arrest us yet—”

“Other fairy?”

“Some kind of cat thing,” Sam explains as he helps Dean to his feet. Dean presses a hand to his abdomen, but there’s no wound from the dream-knife left. He feels surprisingly good, actually, like a weight’s been lifted off of him. “It must have been helping the mære, it attacked me after I stabbed it—” 

“Cait sìth,” Dean mutters, remembering. “It called for a cait sìth to, uh,” but he won’t hide anything, not from Sam, not anymore, “to take my soul.” 

Sam starts, opens his mouth, then shakes his head. “Later,” he says, pushing Dean toward the Impala. “Let's just get the hell out.”

Dean doesn’t protest when Sam takes the driver’s seat, just gets in and leans back against the seat, letting Sam choose where they go. They don’t drive as far this time; maybe half an hour passes before Sam pulls into the lot of a Motel 6 and shuts the engine off. Dean goes to check them in though; Sam still looks like he’s been through hell, and Dean, surprisingly, is fine, if still a bit tired.

As soon as they’re in the room and have put down their stuff, Sam pulls Dean back into his arms, nuzzling his face against Dean’s and breathing out a sigh of relief. “I fricking hate fairies,” he murmurs, brushing his lips over Dean’s cheek. “I didn’t really, uh, appreciate how much they suck before.”

“You and me both,” Dean mutters, but he can’t dredge up any real anger right now, not with Sam standing so close, his hair tickling Dean’s face, his breath warm on Dean’s neck. He closes his eyes, wrapping his arms around Sam’s waist and breathing him in. He still needs to check Sam over, needs to hear what happened from him, but it can wait for a little longer. 

“Dean,” Sam whispers, lips trailing over his jaw. He pulls back a little, eyes searching Dean’s face. “Are you…?”

“I’m fine,” Dean tells him, and it’s not even a lie.

They trade stories while Sam sits on the edge of the bed and Dean cleans the blood off his brother’s cheek. The cut isn’t bad, not too big and already sealed shut, so Dean just slathers on some antibiotic ointment and covers the whole thing with a band-aid. “Anywhere else?” he asks Sam, who takes a deep breath.

“The cat thing scratched me,” he says, his voice low, and pulls off his shirt.

Dean takes a deep breath too, suddenly shy. It’s ridiculous, he knows; he’s seen Sam shirtless thousands of times, treated wounds on him hundreds more, but something about doing it now, now that this thing between them is happening, is different. For one thing, Sam looks so fucking _good_ , even with a few bloody grooves splitting one pectoral. Dean’s fingers linger on Sam’s skin as he cleans them, marveling at the heat of it, at the smoothness. Sam’s breath hitches, and their eyes meet. And Dean wants, again, wants Sam with a sort of overarching desire he can’t quite name. “Sammy,” he tries, but the word sticks in his throat.

So he kisses him instead.

Sam melts into him, kissing him back with a fervor that makes Dean’s head spin. “Dean,” Sam breathes back, his hand stroking down Dean’s back as he sucks on Dean’s lower lip, sending waves of heat through him. “Can I?” His fingers slide under the hem of Dean’s shirt, brushing fire over his skin as Sam curls them around the fabric and tugs.

“Yeah,” Dean rasps, and Sam draws Dean’s shirt up over his head and kisses his collarbones, the hollow of his throat, down his sternum, while Dean digs his fingers into Sam’s shoulders and holds on. Sam’s hands spread over the small of his back, hot and huge, and Dean arches into them, gasping out loud as Sam mouths at one of his nipples. His whole body feels warm, fevered almost, his skin shivering under Sam’s touch, and when Sam’s hand slides around him to settle on the button fastening his jeans, he nods even before Sam asks. 

“You sure?” Sam murmurs against his nipple.

Dean kisses the top of Sam’s head and rubs his cheek against Sam’s hair, which he fucking loves, for all he makes fun of it. “I’m sure,” he says, because he is. “Are you?” He puts his own hands on Sam’s zipper and tugs.

Sam chuckles, low in his chest. “I’m sure.” He helps Dean unzip and unbutton his jeans, shucking out of them and his boxers and kicking them aside before reaching for Dean again. Dean can’t stop himself from staring at Sam’s naked body, eyes tracing every line, every sinew and muscle and scar. He knows them all, but it’s like he’s seeing Sam for the first time. Sam’s erection is full and hard, flushed in the low lamplight, and Dean’s mouth feels dry, suddenly. But he wants. He wants.

He shudders when Sam undoes his jeans and eases them down around his thighs, gasps when Sam presses his mouth against first one, then the other hip. His hands flutter on Sam’s shoulders, fumbling for a grip as Sam gently sets his teeth on the bone. “Sam,” he manages, his voice cracking. “Sam, please.” 

They end up sprawled diagonally across the bed, Sam half on top of Dean, their legs tangled together as they kiss. Sam’s skin is hot against his, rough in some places and smooth in others, and Dean pushes against him, feeling like he’s going to break at any moment. But it’s good. Better than good, really; it’s the best damn thing Dean’s felt in what feels like forever, and he needs more.

He pulls at Sam, tugging him closer, dragging him on top of him, until Sam’s whole body is weighing him down, his arms bracketing Dean’s shoulders, his thighs trapping Dean’s between them, Dean’s erection pushing up against Sam’s hip. Sam’s own erection is a hard line of heat against his thigh, and it’s that, the feel of his brother’s cock pressed up against him, that makes it real. This is happening. This is him, and Sam, and it’s not a dream.

Dean bruises their mouths together, sucking on Sam’s pink lips, tasting him as Sam tangles their tongues together and kisses the breath out of him. Sam rolls his hips, wriggling until his cock is pushing up against Dean’s. The feel of it is so unexpected, all heat and hardness and pressure, and so good that Dean breaks the kiss, his head falling back onto the pillow. “Sam,” he gasps, trying to push up into that heat. “Sam, I — god, Sammy, need to feel you—”

“I got you,” Sam whispers, and then he’s sitting up, straddling Dean’s thighs and wrapping up both their cocks in one of his huge hands. “Is this okay?” he pants, his thumb smoothing across the head of Dean’s cock, spreading the wetness across the slit and making Dean jump underneath him.

“Jesus, Sammy, yeah.” Dean reaches out and gets his hands on Sam’s hips, his thumbs digging into the soft grooves of flesh just under the jut of the bones. Sam throws his head back, letting out a little mewl of pleasure, and it’s the most beautiful fucking thing Dean’s ever seen. 

Dean holds on tight and swivels his hips, grinding against Sam's cock as Sam strokes his hand down the lengths of their erections. They lock gazes, and Dean can see it there, in Sam’s face, love and desire and something that he thinks might be happiness. It’s everything he’s feeling, reflected. It’s everything he’s held back. 

It’s everything he needs.

“Dean,” Sam gasps above him, his hand squeezing them tightly together as he rocks his hips forward. He’s still looking at Dean, his hazel eyes bright, and Dean reaches the top then, his body winding up tight and then releasing as he falls over the edge. Sam’s eyes widen, his pupils going deep and dark. “Oh,” he hears Sam says, “ _oh_ ,” and then he feels Sam’s body go rigid, feels his cock pulse against Dean’s. But he doesn’t look away from Sam’s face, watching as Sam cries out, coming apart, falling after him. Together.

Like they should be.

When he falls asleep a few minutes later, Sam wrapped around him, warm and pliant, he doesn’t dream.

Sam is stretched out next to him when he wakes up, one arm around Dean’s neck so that Dean’s head is pillowed on Sam’s shoulder. He’s holding his tablet in the other hand. “I figured it out,” he says, brushing his lips against Dean’s temple. 

“Figured what out?” Dean mumbles.

“The mære’s plan,” Sam says. “I looked up cait sìth, and it’s a kind of fairy cat that can steal people’s souls when they die. It’s definitely what I fought, they’re black with a white spot on their chests. So they must have been planning to get your soul all along.”

Dean doesn’t really want to think about this now. He wants to curl into Sam’s warmth and let the rest of the world fade away a little longer. It’ll catch up with them soon enough. “Nice pillow talk,” he mumbles into Sam’s chest. “Kinda ruining the afterglow here, Sammy.”

Sam chuckles and sifts the fingers through Dean’s hair. “Sorry, I didn’t want to wake you, so...”

“And you like to research shit, yeah yeah.” Dean trails his fingers down Sam’s bare chest. “All right, hit me.” 

“I also found this.” Sam swipes a few times, then shows him the screen and taps on the words ‘mære-ride’. “This is what it did. Mære can sometimes take control of people’s bodies while they’re dreaming. It’s called the mære-ride. That’s why you walked out of the room. It was riding you.”

Dean can’t help snickering, just a little. “Riding me,” he repeats, and Sam’s brows draw together disapprovingly for a moment before he breaks and laughs. Dean tugs him down, bringing their mouths together. He tastes sour, and he’s pretty sure they both smell terrible, but he really doesn’t care.

“So, I think that’s what it was working up to,” Sam says a few minutes later. “It wanted to ri — _control_ you, so it could get you to where the cait sìth was waiting.”

“Out of our protections?” Dean muses despite himself.

Sam nods. “And away from me.”

Dean nods, a little shiver of cold going down his spine. It had almost worked, he knows. If Sam hadn’t pushed, if Sam hadn’t stayed with him and given him a reason to fight—

“Good thing you were there, then,” he says.

[ ](http://sillie82.livejournal.com/376186.html)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See all the art (there's more!!) [HERE](http://sillie82.livejournal.com/376186.html)! Go, it's GORGEOUS. :DDDD
> 
> Lyrics are from "Mistress" by Disturbed.


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